OPPO’s Sporadic Find N5 Availability Is A Gift To Samsung

OPPO messed around and made the best foldable on the market with the Find N5. However, the company is making a major mistake with this product. Instead of launching it virtually everywhere – like they did with the Find N3 – it’s only available in a handful of markets. In fact, as far as we can tell, it’s just Singapore and China. Despite OPPO saying it’s a “global launch”. Most Chinese OEMs constitute a “global launch” meaning at least one country outside of China, so that’s not too surprising. But it does rub a lot of people the wrong way.

This very sporadic availability of the Find N5 is great for OPPO’s competitors, namely Samsung. Samsung, hasn’t made a lot of changes year-over-year with their foldable, though this year seems to be one of the bigger design changes for the Galaxy Z Fold 7, as we detailed in our leak earlier today. And now that OPPO is not selling the Find N5 in Samsung’s biggest markets, it gives Samsung less reason to make big changes.

The OPPO Find N5 won’t be available in the US (as OnePlus is not launching a foldable this year), and so far is not going to be available in Europe. The US is Samsung’s biggest market, followed by South Korea, which will likely get the Find N5, but later on down the road. As we do know OPPO will launch the Find N5 in a few other Asian countries come April.

Why is OPPO launching the Find N5 in so few markets?

We can speculate all day about OPPO’s plan here, and we’ll have to, as we won’t ever get a concrete answer from OPPO on this. But the only thing I can think of, is it’s pretty pricey to manufacture the Find N5, and foldable sell in such low volume that OPPO doesn’t want to manufacture a ton of units, only for them to go unsold.

The OPPO Find N5 did get a price increase this year to S$2499 in Singapore, whereas the Find N3 was S$2399 when it launched in late 2023. Converted to USD, that’s $1867 for the Find N5 and $1793 for Find N3. Not a huge price increase, when you think about it. And given all the money that OPPO spent on the Find N5 for R&D to get it to be so thin, you’d think OPPO would want to recoup that investment.

OnePlus opting not to launch the Find N5 as the Open 2 this year, is also a huge letdown. Many people, including yours truly, were excited for a OnePlus Open 2, and was even planning to switch to it full-time. But that’s not happening in 2025, unfortunately. While we don’t know the volume of sales for the OnePlus Open, from what we can tell, it did sell very well here in the US.

If you hop over onto Reddit, you’ll find many people are upset with OnePlus and OPPO over this launch. And on the OnePlus side, many are wondering if they should support OnePlus with the Open 2, even if it does come out in 2026. Because what if OnePlus decides to take another three years off from foldable? It’s just not a good look for OnePlus.

Samsung is bound to reap the rewards here

Samsung is number one in the foldable market, and it seems like they’ve been squandering that lead in recent years. Since Chinese smartphone makers have surpassed them quite a bit with their foldable devices. Including the Vivo x Fold 3 series, the HONOR Magic V3, and even Huawei’s Mate XT tri-fold. But the one advantage that Samsung has over those three that were named, is the United States of America. Vivo, HONOR, and Huawei are not sold in the US, and while we can use their foldable devices here, it’s not the same experience.

Samsung is making some big changes to the Galaxy Z Fold 7 this year, including making it just 4.5mm thin, which is over a millimeter thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It’s also making the cover display even wider this year, which is still an issue with their foldable devices, which are in their seventh generation. And it’s finally upgrading the primary sensor to a 200-megapixel shooter.

Could OPPO increase availability in April?

From what I’ve heard, OPPO is planning to launch the Find N5 in a few more Asian markets this April. That could also include Europe and the UK. However, the comment that OPPO gave to The Tech Chap, indicates that won’t be happening.

At OPPO, we carefully tailor our product launchers to each region based on in-depth market research and strategic priorities.

The Find N5 will not be launching in Europe. Instead, In Q1 2025, we will introduce the Reno13 series across Europe on February 24, offering consumers more choices with cutting-edge AI features and stylish, trend-forward designs. Stay tuned for updates.

So it really looks like the OPPO Find N5 won’t be leaving Asia, and that’s a real shame. I’ve been using this phone for almost three weeks now, and absolutely love it. It’s far better than the foldable alternatives we have in the US – namely the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. And it’s an even bigger miss in Europe. Hopefully, the FInd N6 is right around the corner, as we have heard rumors that it will be launching towards the end of this year, or very early next year. Instead of taking almost two years to launch like the Find N5 did.